by Death
‘Are you able to find us an undertaker, do you think? I can pay.’
He rubbed his stubbled chin. ‘I can find you one near St Martin’s, if you want. I’ll take fourpence.’
I thought fourpence was daylight robbery, and that he was making money from our grief, but decided not to argue. He knew the area better than I did and would find someone faster than I would. He pocketed the coins and then favoured us with what he probably hoped was a compassionate expression.
‘I’ll get going now, then. Don’t want to leave you ladies down here for too long, do I? An’ I got stuff to do, besides.’
His ‘stuff’ involved sitting in the alehouse rather than ferrying passengers, most likely. There was nothing to do except drown our sorrows in the same alehouse while we waited for him to return. We sat by ourselves, huddled together in silence around our drinks as if it were winter. Sallie had wanted to speak to me about something. I was troubled by the thought that, had I been more interested, she would still be alive.
‘What was it that she wanted to tell me, did she ever tell either of you?’
Bess, about to take a mouthful of the not-very-pleasant beer, paused and looked thoughtful.
‘She said it was something about Paris.’
This again. I sighed. ‘You told me that the other night.’ I had hoped for more, a small clue that would help me locate Reed’s killer – and possibly her own.
‘I haven’t been to Paris,’ said Kitty, to no one in particular. ‘But I’ve never been to the sea in this country, even.’
‘What?’
‘I said I’ve never been to the sea.’
I shook my head. She couldn’t be that drunk on one pot of weak beer. ‘What’s that got to do with Paris?’
Kitty gave me a superior look. ‘Sallie said that Paris had a beach. That means it must be by the sea.’
I laughed. It was the first time I had laughed for hours.
‘Sallie was an idiot even when she was sober. Paris isn’t on the coast.’ But even as I laughed, something nagged at me. ‘Did she tell you something about Paris, Kitty? Something about Mr Reed and Paris?’
‘That’s what I’m telling you,’ Kitty rolled her eyes. ‘She said that she heard Mr Reed on the night he died. He was having an argument with someone. She didn’t think anything of it until you told her you’d buy her gingerbread whenever you saw her.’
That was not what I had said.
‘She heard my conversation with the gingerbread man. Go on.’
‘Well, she told me that Mr Reed said he had missed the beach in Paris.’ Kitty raised her head, proud of herself for recalling a vital piece of information. Bess scowled. She hadn’t heard this. Sallie must have only shared it with Kitty.
‘Missed the beach?’ I propped my elbows on the table and rubbed my temples. I was trying not to become exasperated. ‘Missed the beach? What did she mean by that?’
Kitty looked confused. She scratched at her hair.
‘I don’t know. How am I supposed to know? That was what she told me. Mr Reed said that he had missed the beach in Paris.’
It was drunken nonsense. Whether it was Sallie’s own drunken nonsense, or Kitty’s in the retelling, I wasn’t sure. I was quite certain that George Reed, having been in Paris, would know that it had a river, but no sea and no beach.
I felt in my pocket for the gold button, running my thumb over the little bird. It was my only link to Sallie and her killer. Silently, I swore on it, that I would find out the truth, knowing that the button was a better witness to it than either of these two girls, or even Sallie herself.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The undertakers were efficient when they arrived and even managed to appear dignified. This was, in part, because I was dressed, if not like a lady, then certainly like a woman of means, and they were hoping for a few coins by way of gratitude. I obliged them; it’s how things work around here, but even though they might just have been happy to take my money, they gave a good impression of earnestness and honesty. I watched them go off in their dismal cart. Kitty and Bess went with them, leaving me to walk back towards Soho alone. There would be no grand funeral for Sallie. Mr Davenport’s money would give her a little dignity, but she would be lost among the masses of the wretched in death as in life and no one would weep for her.
As I passed St Martin’s, I wondered whether God the Father, whose blessed son loved prostitutes, would welcome her to a better home. Or perhaps, as my own father would have said, he would send her to everlasting damnation.
Thinking about my father was never a good idea. I decided to do something useful: find the owner of the gold button.
* * *
The world of gentlemen’s clothing is less of a mystery to me than it used to be. I have become, in the last few months, well-acquainted with breeches, shirts, neck ties, waistcoats – brocade or wool – coats and hats. Discarded over my floor in a hurry by eager young men, or carefully folded by the less-energetic ones able to afford to take their time, I have seen them: the best new fashions that money can buy – and the over-darned stockings that are coming towards the end of their natural life.
I am aware of how a garment feels as it is removed from the body it encloses, warm and soft. I know the sound of breeches buttons fumbled open, the hasty shrugging off of a coat, the noise a shoe makes when, tugged from a foot, it falls to the ground. Bolts of cloth, lying untouched, unworn in a tailor’s emporium, present a wholly different world for me though.
Men, like women, come by their clothes in different ways. I do know that. Not everyone buys everything new. I don’t always. Great business is to be had in London by the selling on of second-hand garments. You can’t always tell a person’s income from the cut of the clothes they wear: a decent coat taken from a dead gentleman and hawked about by an undertaker might be picked up for a fair price by a baker or a bookseller, as much as another gentleman who had fallen on hard times. What would tell you that this was a second-hand purchase might be the quality of the cloth, or the fashion of the cut – but you would have to look closely. Dresses worn by duchesses, in silk or satin, would be copied – sometimes very well – by discerning garment makers in cotton or wool. The lower orders liked to wear the same as their betters: every slut in London could feel like a lady, if she had rummaged through the second-hand markets of Monmouth Street. Or at least, she could look like the courtesan who had been forced to sell her clothes when she was down on her luck at the gaming tables.
There were clothing shops across London. I could comb every inch, every alleyway and wide street from Cheapside to Piccadilly and still have plenty more places to try. This was the nub of the problem. I had a button with a dark blue thread. It could have been stitched onto any coat made in London in the last ten years. I was looking for a needle in a haystack.
The only place to start was where I was. The Strand, famed for its cheap women, was also well-known for tailors. Men of quality walked along this way looking for both.
It was early afternoon. Women of pleasure were only now beginning to emerge into the streets, and their numbers had not yet reached the level where they plucked at men’s sleeves to attract attention. The tailors were doing the brisker business for now. I found one shop: a middling establishment with bolts of cloth displayed to good effect. Brocades, watered silks and velvets in rich reds, purples and greens were hung in the bay window to show how they might fall when made into coats, pooling together in the window’s ledge. I pushed the door open and smelled warm fabric and the fresh tang of gentlemen’s perfume.
Three shop assistants were demonstrating their brocaded waistcoats to two elegant but disinterested gentlemen. The assistants were working hard to make a sale; inviting the customers to note the cut and the quality of the cloth as they admired their physiques in the mirror. The gentlemen were less enamoured of the waistcoats than their own reflections. Then they all turned to look at me.
‘Can we help?’
I ignored the tone, and the way
the senior assistant’s mouth pursed as he addressed my interruption. He was a thin-faced man, past his prime and bitter about it. The two younger, prettier, assistants stared at me. I was not a Strand girl, not a twopenny-whore, but they wouldn’t want me in the shop for long. I put on my haughtiest manner.
‘I hope that you can.’ The two fine gentlemen tore their gaze from the mirror, took in my dress, my carriage, my brazen step into their world and knew immediately what sort of woman I was. I could almost hear them haggling over which of them would go first. I ignored that too.
‘I have a button. It came to me… ah, from a friend, and we are trying to trace its owner.’ I presented the button to the assistant for inspection as if I were carrying a family heirloom. He glanced briefly and then waved his hand dismissively.
‘It’s just a button,’ he said, echoing Mr Davenport’s opinion. ‘Have you any idea how many buttons we see every day?’
I kept my hand out. ‘But this one is interesting, don’t you think? It has a small bird on it.’
He shrugged. ‘Buttons have designs on them. It’s not unusual.’
‘Please,’ I said. ‘I’d really like to know who it belongs to – so that I can return it. Some gentleman might be missing it. Walking around with a shabby coat.’
One of the younger assistants gave an involuntary shudder, as if the thought of a half-finished coat caused him physical pain. The older man looked down his skinny nose.
‘Perhaps you should ask your friend which coat she pulled it from,’ he said. ‘I can’t help you. Leave my shop, slut.’ He turned his back, picked up a tape measure and hung it around his neck. The pretty shrimps took the hint and began to fuss over the waistcoats as if I had already left.
‘Thank you for your assistance,’ I said, in the sort of acidic voice I had heard Ma Farley use with tradesmen. ‘I’ll be sure to recommend your establishment to everyone I know.’ One of the gentlemen grabbed my arm as I passed and offered his own helpful suggestion of how he and I might spend the afternoon together. I shrugged him away; there were a thousand other shops to look at. Besides, there would be enough men like him waiting for me at Berwick Street.
It was the same story everywhere that I tried. With varying degrees of disdain, shop assistants shook their heads and told me that a button, with or without a bird on it, was unimportant or untraceable. I trudged home past plenty of mercers and tailors, I tried buckle-sellers and shops selling belts and swords and pocket watches. I gave an hour to the rag markets in the better corners of Seven Dials – where one thieving wretch tried to grab the button from me and several others offered to buy it for a pittance – and the trail of second-hand emporia on Monmouth Street. Everywhere I was met with a wall of disinterest. I was told that embossed buttons were not special, that they had never seen one with this sort of bird on it, they didn’t know where it came from and I should quiz my friend if I really wanted to know. It was a pity that she was dead, I thought, as I reached Berwick Street in the darkness, otherwise I would have shaken the information from her to save my aching feet.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The sky was appropriately dismal for Sallie’s funeral.
I put on my most sober outfit and left off the rouge, slipping out before Ma could see me so undressed. To anyone who passed me, I was a presentable, even modest, young woman going about my business in the grey morning. At least it wasn’t raining, but the wind was cold enough to make me scowl. If there were any other whores out on the streets of Soho, they were either desperate for coin or going to a funeral.
I tugged my cloak more firmly around my shoulders and sank my chin into its folds, in an effort to keep out the sharp chill as I hurried to St Anne’s. A woman, basket over her arm, gave a brisk wave with a gloved hand. It was Susan Groves.
She was smiling, her face free from anxiety. I supposed that her husband was safely at work – with enough food to satisfy him this time.
‘You’ll never guess,’ she began speaking before I had time to greet her, ‘John’s buying me a new bonnet.’
She told me this with as much joy in her eyes as one might behold from an expectant grandmother, or someone who had suddenly come into a surprise inheritance.
‘How delightful,’ I responded to her genuine happiness, rather than to the actual news about the hat. ‘Is it a very fine hat?’
Her face fell a little. ‘I have yet to choose it,’ she said. ‘But he has promised me a new one,’ she added defiantly. So, there was no hat in existence yet.
‘Well, my congratulations on the soon-to-be new bonnet, then,’ I said with mock solemnity. ‘I look forward to making its acquaintance soon. You must press him for it without delay.’ I grinned, hoping that she would take my teasing in good heart.
She gave a timid smile and plucked at her cloak. It wasn’t as thick as mine and her bony shoulders suggested that she needed a new cloak more than a bonnet. I doubted that Mr Groves would offer her both. Even so, his extravagance puzzled me.
‘Has your husband come into money?’ It was an impertinent question and polite ladies do not ask such things. But I am not considered polite anymore, so felt free enough to ask it. Her expression became more conspiratorial.
‘Well,’ she leaned closer, ‘I thought we would be short, having lost such a good lodger as Mr Reed, but John has told me that he’s discovered a way of making money, and that we will be flush with it soon enough.’ I had a prickly feeling down the back of my neck. Perhaps Mr Groves had taken up where George Reed had come to an abrupt end. There could be a great deal of cash in blackmail – especially if Mr Groves had searched Reed’s room before Mr Davenport and I had reached it and found a few scribbled notes. Taken some of them and thrown the rest over the wall of the White Horse…
‘Has he shared the source of his good fortune?’
She shook her head. ‘No, but I think that his partner is looking to sell up. The butcher, I mean.’ She must have seen me looking doubtful.
‘He’ll buy his partner’s share of the business, you think?’ I was worrying over nothing. This was a man on the edge of a deal, and nothing more.
‘He’s not said exactly. But that’s what I’ve guessed. My husband will control the business and the profit.’
I didn’t know how far to trust Susan Groves’ guesses. She seemed far too innocent in the ways of the world – unlike her husband.
‘But where are you off too, looking so sombre?’ She interrupted my musings with a chirrup.
‘A funeral.’
Her bright smile evaporated with an agony of having said the wrong thing. She clutched at my arm.
‘Miss Hardwicke, I am so sorry. Do forgive me. Was this a close relative?’
I was touched that she believed my family would still be speaking to me. I could hardly call them close.
‘An acquaintance,’ I said. ‘A young woman from the streets who met a very sad end. She was pulled from the river yesterday.’
Her face crumpled in sympathy. Mrs Groves was solidly respectable, but she was not without compassion. She put a hand on my arm.
‘I am sorry, if she was a friend of yours.’ She rummaged in her basket and took out a stem of rosemary. ‘Here, have this. For remembrance.’
‘Thank you.’
She gave me a careful look.
‘Yours is a hard life – especially for one born a gentlewoman.’
She was shrewd enough to have noticed that. Perhaps she was right about her husband’s business plans, after all.
‘Thank you, Mrs Groves. It’s not the life I chose, but no woman gets a free choice, does she?’
She gave a look of uneasy acknowledgement before leaving me at the gate of the church yard and wandering away down Princes Street, shoulders hunched against the wind.
I saw Kitty and Bess next to a yew tree, clutching one another and giggling. Neither of them had any idea how to behave, but I suspected anxiety rather than devilment. At the far corner of the church yard I spotted the rector in a round wig and
a voluminous white surplice that kept whipping up in the breeze. On the ground, between him and the undertaker’s men, lay a rough-looking coffin. Sallie.
I scooped up the chattering girls and we made our way to the grave. The rector took his fat hand off his wig only to take the coins I pressed into it; the funeral might be paid for by the parish, but I wanted it done decently. Even so, he flipped open his prayer book and began to recite the words of the burial service at speed, as keen to finish as the rest of us. Keen to get back to a warm tavern, from the look of him. I wasn’t going to argue when there was a cold wind chafing my ears. The girls fell silent, as if in awe. He slurred a couple of the words, but he managed not to make a mess of the psalm.
On his signal, the two other men stumbled forward, picked up the coffin, and eased it, as gently as they could, into the pit. I tried not to look into the ground, but it wasn’t easy to avoid signs of other occupants in this plot, who had been hastily dusted over with quick lime and soil. The men would have shovelled more soil into the pit immediately, but the rector, in a lame attempt to afford Sallie some sort of dignity, and mindful of my coins, held up a finger and finished the prayers, before clutching his wig again.
He reached the conclusion, nodded to me, ignored the girls and walked back towards his church. At that, the grey-faced men began to tip the soil from their wheelbarrow. I took a deep sniff of the rosemary that was still in my hand, before casting it into the grave with the lime. Bess and Kitty threw their posies.
Then there was little else to do but take them to the White Horse, to remember Sallie in the traditional way.
A familiar figure stood leaning against the churchyard gate, watching us. He looked as though he had been standing there for the whole service, impervious to the cold and unruffled by the wind, hat in his hand. I hailed him.
